DRN-6122481

The complaint Miss J complains Tesco Personal Finance Limited trading as Tesco Bank (Tesco) provided incorrect information about liability for a motor insurance claim on her policy. What happened Miss J held a motor insurance policy with Tesco. When her policy was up for renewal she obtained cover from an alternative insurer. She provided information to her new insurer that the claim made on her policy with Tesco in April 2025 was a non-fault claim. When checked, it was found this was a fault claim. This increased the cost of her policy premiums with her alternative insurer. Tesco accepted there was an error with its online portal summary screen which showed the claim as non-fault. It said all other documentation provided to her had the claim correctly recorded as fault. It apologised for the contradiction and that a claim closure letter was not sent out. It paid her £60 for these errors. Because Miss J was not happy with Tesco, she brought the complaint to our service. Our investigator didn’t uphold the complaint. They looked into the case and said they couldn’t say Tesco were responsible for the increase in premium with her new insurer. Regardless of the information contained on Tesco’s portal summary page, the fault claim her new insurer used was correct. They said the £60 compensation awarded to acknowledge this error is fair and it acknowledges the impact the error had on her and the loss of expectation her claim was being dealt with on a recoverable basis. As Miss J is unhappy with our investigator’s view the complaint has been brought to me for a final decision to be made. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. Miss J reported the claim as non-fault to her new insurer based on information shown on the online portal summary screen. Tesco has acknowledged there was an issue with this summary screen, where fault claims were incorrectly being displayed as non-fault for some customers, including Miss J. Miss J feels that Tesco are responsible for the increase in the policy premium with her alternative insurer because she relied on the incorrect information on its online portal summary screen. Although Miss J said not at any point was she told the claim was a fault claim, I saw evidence that when the incident occurred and was reported in April 2025, Tesco acknowledged the claim to Miss J and provided the claim reference number, information on

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getting her vehicle repaired, payment of the policy excess and her upcoming renewal. It referred a number of times to the claim being dealt with as a fault claim in this correspondence. I saw on 2 August 2025 Tesco emailed Miss J to say her renewal was due and in this email it reminded her it was important to make sure she reviewed her renewal invitation and policy documents in her online portal. I saw the renewal documents correctly recorded the claim as fault. Two days after this email was sent Miss J cancelled her automatic renewal. Despite the online portal summary screen being incorrect, I found all documents provided to Miss J correctly confirmed the claim was being dealt with as fault. It is Miss J’s responsibility to check the content of documents sent to her. I saw the online portal shows the renewal documents were never opened. Although the error on Tesco’s online portal summary sheet led Miss J to provide incorrect information to the alternative insurer, I think she should’ve been aware the claim she made was being dealt with as fault because of the correspondence sent to her when the claim in question was made. Ultimately the claim was a fault claim and I am unable to tell Tesco to change this to a non-fault claim, because this is not correct. Miss J will have to disclose this as a fault accident for the named driver on her policy. I understand when Miss J’s new insurer found the claim was fault rather than non-fault and increased its policy premium this would’ve been stressful for her. I acknowledge she had to take time to sort this matter out, and in particular there was an additional cost to her that she had not expected and had not budgeted for. However, I’m unable to hold Tesco responsible for the pricing of another insurers policy premiums. Tesco apologised for the mistake on its online portal summary screen and paid Miss J £60 to acknowledge this error. I think this was a fair redress for her loss of expectation in this complaint. Therefore, although I understand Miss J will be disappointed, I don’t uphold her complaint and don’t require Tesco to do anything further in this case. My final decision For the reasons I have given I don’t uphold this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Miss J to accept or reject my decision before 15 May 2026. Sally-Ann Harding Ombudsman

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